Absolutely amazing that it took them this long. This is a culture where prime-time TV is like: "Seinfeld" dubbed in French, sponsored by car commercials with tits, followed by "Friends: dubbed into French, sponsored by spaghetti sauce commercials with tits, etc. . . .

markfara:Absolutely amazing that it took them this long. This is a culture where prime-time TV is like: "Seinfeld" dubbed in French, sponsored by car commercials with tits, followed by "Friends: dubbed into French, sponsored by spaghetti sauce commercials with tits, etc. . . .

I don't know what you imagine that has to do with gay marriage, but AFAI most non-english speaking countries dub US and British shows into their native tongue. The Scandinavian countries are exceptions in Europe, opting for subtitling instead.More importantly, why are you saying "tits" like they're a bad thing?

Dansker:markfara: Absolutely amazing that it took them this long. This is a culture where prime-time TV is like: "Seinfeld" dubbed in French, sponsored by car commercials with tits, followed by "Friends: dubbed into French, sponsored by spaghetti sauce commercials with tits, etc. . . .

I don't know what you imagine that has to do with gay marriage, but AFAI most non-english speaking countries dub US and British shows into their native tongue. The Scandinavian countries are exceptions in Europe, opting for subtitling instead.More importantly, why are you saying "tits" like they're a bad thing?

I guess my point is that I get to France from time to time, and their casual attitude toward sexual matters impresses me anew every time I go there. . . . Our regular, overplayed, bland TV shows are given a vibrant new life by the simple inclusion of tits. . . They also show hard-core porn after midnight.

I certainly didn't mean to cast any aspersions on tits themselves, and I apologize sincerely to any tits that I inadvertently offended in my Boobies.

markfara:Dansker: markfara: Absolutely amazing that it took them this long. This is a culture where prime-time TV is like: "Seinfeld" dubbed in French, sponsored by car commercials with tits, followed by "Friends: dubbed into French, sponsored by spaghetti sauce commercials with tits, etc. . . .

I don't know what you imagine that has to do with gay marriage, but AFAI most non-english speaking countries dub US and British shows into their native tongue. The Scandinavian countries are exceptions in Europe, opting for subtitling instead.More importantly, why are you saying "tits" like they're a bad thing?

I guess my point is that I get to France from time to time, and their casual attitude toward sexual matters impresses me anew every time I go there. . . . Our regular, overplayed, bland TV shows are given a vibrant new life by the simple inclusion of tits. . . They also show hard-core porn after midnight.

I certainly didn't mean to cast any aspersions on tits themselves, and I apologize sincerely to any tits that I inadvertently offended in my Boobies.

Boobies.

I have no idea why the filter changed that.

Also, Paris had a gay mayor for a while. It might still, for all I know.

According to the annual report, 645 cases were reported to the French LGBT organization last year, compared to 249 reported cases in 2011, illustrating that the number of anti-gay assaults has more than doubled in France. However, almost half of the attacks occurred in the last three months, during the time gay marriage demonstrations began to heat up in Paris, SOS Homophobia President Elisabeth Ronzier indicated to Le Huffington Post.Surprisingly, France ranked further down the list in the EU survey, with 41 percent of respondents reporting discrimination based on sexual orientation.

It's often been said that France has the stupidest right-wing in the world.Anyway, the reason for such strong oppositions came to two things : first, it was the opportunity for lots of fringe currents to find some legitimacy. Royalists (yes !), Catholics extremists, far-right, etc... all those people used the opportunity of this law to catch some spotlight.Then, the UMP, the party of former president Nicholas Sarkosy. Even though François Hollande, the current president, is quite unpopular, the UMP is not seen as a viable alternative. They got trounced at the last elections, and the French people does not forget that, if the situation is bad now, UMP had full reins of the country the last ten years. So, although in other circumstances their opposition would have been quite light, they played with fire, and tried to transform this opposition to gay marriage, from a fringe minority of kooks and extremists, into a popular movement against the politics of Holland.

padraig:aagrajag: skinink: And yet attacks against gays in France has gone up.

Death throes of a dying position.

I too however, was surprised at the size of the opposition in France.

It's often been said that France has the stupidest right-wing in the world.Anyway, the reason for such strong oppositions came to two things : first, it was the opportunity for lots of fringe currents to find some legitimacy. Royalists (yes !), Catholics extremists, far-right, etc... all those people used the opportunity of this law to catch some spotlight.Then, the UMP, the party of former president Nicholas Sarkosy. Even though François Hollande, the current president, is quite unpopular, the UMP is not seen as a viable alternative. They got trounced at the last elections, and the French people does not forget that, if the situation is bad now, UMP had full reins of the country the last ten years. So, although in other circumstances their opposition would have been quite light, they played with fire, and tried to transform this opposition to gay marriage, from a fringe minority of kooks and extremists, into a popular movement against the politics of Holland.

DialecticI am amazed that, in the U.S., we were ahead of the gay rights issue.

It depends on the state.France already had some registered civil partnership thing called PACS going.Interestingly enough, while not intended for them, it's gotten really popular with heterosexual couples.

/friend from school got PACSed to her French boyfriend years ago and I had no clue what the party was for, so I looked it up

The Fark filter prevents people from saying "Boobies". It used to set the post date/time far in the future as well, so that people attempting to spam to get the initial post in a thread would actually end up with the last post.That no longer happens, but it still provides occasional amusement.

Apart from the historical throwback of Alsace-Moselle -- which was part of Germany in 1905 when the Act on Separation of Church and State was enacted for the rest of France, and where Napoleon's 1801 Concordat with the Vatican still applies as it did in 1870, when Germany annexed it -- government and public life are more rigorously secular in France than in the United States. In the US, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment is honored as often in the breach as in the observance: direct subsidies to religion via "faith-based initiatives"; indirect subsidies to religion via tax deductions and exemptions; prayer before every session of Congress; the religious convocation at presidential inaugurations; taking oaths of office on the Bible and swearing before God in court; legislators openly using religiously based arguments against abortion, gay rights, etc., in legislative debates. Not so in France. It's the advantage of a country with a distinctly anti-clerical streak. They don't like it when religions try to impose their sectarian morality on the public at large.

And for what it's worth, only 12 states, the District of Columbia, and three Indian tribes have recognized same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage is now the law throughout the French Republic. As a country, France "was ahead" of the US.

PeregrineBF:The Fark filter prevents people from saying "Boobies". It used to set the post date/time far in the future as well, so that people attempting to spam to get the initial post in a thread would actually end up with the last post.That no longer happens, but it still provides occasional amusement.

Sometimes it says "Weeners," but I'm not sure how it decides which to use.